Dave, Be a Failure
by Arleigh Quinne
Summary: Just how the hell was he supposed to cope with this? With the game, the losses he'd had? It didn't matter. The only thing Dave Strider was, was a failure. Mentions of self-harm and character death.


**warning:** yes, this is sad again. I can't help it! it's my thing. I hope you enjoy it regardless.

**disclaimer:** seeing as I'm still not Hussie, nope, I don't own anything.

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**Dave: Be a failure.**

****It was slipping. The thing he was supposed to protect. The very thing that he had screwed over so very thoroughly that he wasn't even sure if he was the real him, or just some other doomed version that was going to die regardless of what he did. Not that it mattered much to him anyway. He'd already seen so many dead Dave's that it's almost second nature.

Still, though. Those dead selves-the doomed selves that _he himself caused to die_-they'd haunt him. He knew it. He still tried to make the game better. Tried to make it so nobody had to die. Not any of his friends, or those angry-ass trolls that were supposedly trying to "help" them all.

He failed. A lot. Over and over _and fucking __**over**_ he failed. It was like he wasn't allowed to save even a single life. _Not a single one_. Not his, or Bro's. Not any of the trolls'. It was pointless.

He kept at it, though. Kept trying. He was a_ Knight of Time_, damn it- he _had_ to be able to do _something_.

Was it really that pointless? Was there actually _no damn hope at all_? Hell, if there wasn't... no. He couldn't bring himself to focus on _that_ possibility.

He couldn't stop it, though. Every time he closed his eyes behind those shades, he saw it. Everyone he cared about-dead. Because of the foolish choices he had made when trying to save them. _They died because he couldn't protect them._

Even in the timelines that weren't doomed, that weren't going to go haywire and kill the people he wanted to save, he saw deaths. His Bro... he had come just barely too late to help him. A sword through the heart and a growing puddle of blood was all he saw at first. Then it registered. _It was his Bro lying dead at his feet._

He was enraged. Definitely at Jack, but more-so at himself. _Why couldn't he protect the one that had raised him-the person that he could always rely on to make sure his shit was straight?_ He had failed, again. The only difference?

There was no escape from this timeline. There was no way he could stop it from happening. Nothing he could do would change it in any way at all. Bro was meant to die, and he was forced to stand over his corpse. Not as the assailant, not really. Granted, he felt it was his fault that Bro even had to be brought into this shit anyway, but... he couldn't help that. No, he was just another victim.

This pain just hit closer, hurt more, than any of the other injuries he had ever experienced.

Behind the shades, and closed eyelids that _kept reminding him of the horrors he'd seen_, he cried. Not that anyone would know it, of course. But..._ damn it, it fucking __**hurt**__ not being able to see his goddamn __**brother**_. Now who the fuck would keep him in line? Beat him senseless if he made a dumb-ass mistake? Nobody. The only person that would is dead.

Of course, he had to go back. Back in every fucking time line, back to before the game, just for a chance to see Bro. To see some of the people he cared most about. To know for sure that all of those trolls were actually all right and not just scattered and dead.

It was all his fault. When it came down to it, in the dark hours of the night and early morning when the insanity set in hard and the only thing he could see was a rainbow of blood and the corpses of his friends, that's when it really hit him. Over and over, he had to realize that it was _him_ that screwed things up so badly, that was responsible for killing everyone in so many timelines, and damn it, there was nothing he regretted more. Even when Rose tried her psychoanalytical bullshit trying to console him, and make him see that there wasn't really anything he could have done, he didn't listen. He was watching a replay-hearing the voices and shouts and cries and seeing the falls and blood and tears of everyone he ever knew.

Nothing helped. Everything was too damn pristine now; untouchable. There wasn't a single fucking thing that could be touched, or broken, or maimed, or... anything. Every single thing was peaceful.

He just wanted an escape.

Really, a lapse from the perfect new reality was all he wanted. Just someplace where he could actually _live_, but that's not possible. Not now, at least. So he tried, over and over and over again, to make it back far enough to where he could find someone-anyone-that could help him live.

There was no one. He was alone. Nobody could fathom why they had to help him _feel_. So they didn't try to. Any Rose he came across would just try to fuck up his head, try to psychoanalyze shit that he didn't even want to start to understand.

In the end, he was left with himself, not that it was too surprising to him. Dave just let it all out in the only way he knew how.

Not being as reluctant as he probably should be, Dave surrounded himself in red. The red of his god-tier outfit, they red of his eyes, the red from falling meteors and his own blood. The latter soaked through everything, made his clothes a darker shade and put the rusty meteors to shame.

Even then, as he was laying there staring up at the too-clear sky, no one noticed anything was wrong. _Good job, Strider, your mask is fucking perfect_. Not a single one of his friends-could they even be called that? Yes, they had to be. They were all he had, any more- could tell he was slowly bleeding out from the small cuts and lacerations. Of course they wouldn't Dave had made sure to cover them all. Why make them worry? He's the goddamn cool-kid. It's just how he is, how he was fucking _raised_, to not let anything show. So he won't.

He'll keep it hidden, even as it's killing him. It will bring him, the fucking _knight_, to his knees, begging and pleading for death-for something that won't ever happen. He'll never be able to escape this hell, but he'll be damned if he doesn't try.

Dave's eyes fly open behind his skewed shades, and his empty lungs immediately try to fill with air. Damn it. It didn't work. It never does. Always, _every fucking time_, he wakes up. He **gets back up**. Why can't he just stay down? Why won't the crazed thoughts, the increasingly beautiful insanity-why can that not just be his sole reality?

That's right. They won the game. That's why. Everything, as good as it is, is fucked up beyond recognition.

And even so, it's something he can't escape from. It will _always_ be there, taunting and haunting him, dragging him down and refusing to let him up for air.

This new world... he's got it all planned. This place is going to be the final death of him. If not physically, then definitely emotionally, mentally. He was already gone, long buried. Why? Well... because Dave Strider isn't always the cool-kid. He was a failure.

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_please, please don't hate me_... I'm sorry.. only some-what, though. Flames will be used to light new year's candles.


End file.
